Ancient Futures

Learning from Ladakh

240 pages, paperback, Sierra Club/Counterpoint,
2009

Ancient Futures describes Norberg-Hodge's experiences living in Ladakh.
The first chapters describe the lives led by the Ladakhis when she first
arrived in 1974. The later chapters express her dismay at the ways in
which modernization is destroying their culture and environment, and describe
her efforts to help the Ladakhis counteract those pressures. She urges
us to rediscover the time-tested Ladakhi ways for greater happiness and
contentment in our lives.

Praise for Ancient Futures

"Though full of stories and photographs of the Ladakhi way of life, [Ancient
Futures] is much more than a travelogue; it is . . . an ecologue.
. . . The Western industrial 'monoculture' that has infected and endangers
the rich ancient culture of Ladakh is the one that is endangering us,
its progenitors, as well. A book that must be heeded." -- Kirkpatrick
Sale, The Nation.

"The celebration of traditional Ladakhi life induces
exhilaration but also sadness, as if some half-remembered
paradise known in another life had now been lost. So evocative
is it that I felt--I'm not sure what--homesickness?" -- Peter Matthiessen, from the Introduction.

Quotes from Ancient Futures

"While in Tongde, I tried for a long time to figure out how work was coordinated.
Things seemed to get done without the need for discussion and there appeared
to be no regular pattern. Sitting in Angchuk and Dolma's kitchen was like
watching an unchoreographed dance. No one said, 'You do this,' 'Shall
I do that?' Yet, smoothly and gracefully, everything that needed doing
got done. One minute Uncle Dawa was cuddling the baby, the next he was
stirring a pot on the stove, then he was bringing in some flour from the
larder. He passed little Angchuk to Dolma, who held him on her lap as
she chopped vegetables. Angchuk pumped the bellows to keep the fire burning
and held out a pot for Uncle Dawa to pour the flour into. Abi- le, or
Grandmother, took over at the stove while Angdus began to mold the dough
for bread. Dolma went out to fetch water from the stream that ran beside
the house. Then Uncle Dawa sat down beside the stove. He spun his prayer
wheel of shining copper and brass while gently murmuring a sacred mantra,
as if it were an accompaniment to the movement around him."

"People have almost no information about the potential health
hazards of the new imported products. Many Ladakhis now bake
their bread on scraps of asbestos, and I have even seen
pesticide tins being used for salt shakers. Seventy percent of
the pesticides used in India are either banned or severely
restricted in the West; in Ladakh, despite the fact that there
are almost no pests, farmers are encouraged to use BHC, which is
more potent than DDT. Once, when I tried to explain to some
Ladakhi friends that the butter they were using contained
formaldehyde and was bad for their health, they were
astonished. They could not believe that it would be sold in the
shops and that so many people would be eating it if it was
really so harmful."

"As one of the last subsistence economies to survive
virtually intact to the present day, Ladakh has been a unique
vantage point from which to observe the whole process of
development. Its collision with the modern world has been
particularly sudden and dramatic. Yet the transformation it is
now experiencing is anything but unique; essentially the same
process is affecting every corner of the world."

"The messengers of development--tourists, advertisements, and
film images--have implicitly been telling the Ladakhis that
their traditional practices are backward and that modern science
will help them stretch natural resources to produce ever more.
Development is stimulating dissatisfaction and greed; in so
doing, it is destroying an economy that had served people's
needs for more than a thousand years. Traditionally the
Ladakhis had used the resources in their immediate vicinity with
remarkable ingenuity and skill, and worked out how to live in
relative comfort and enviable security. They were satisfied
with what they had. But now, whatever they have isn't enough.

"In the sixteen or so years since development first came to
Ladakh, I have watched the gap between rich and poor widen; I
have watched women lose their self-confidence and power; I have
watched the appearance of unemployment and inflation and a
dramatic rise in crime; I have watched population levels soar,
fueled by a variety of economic and psychological pressures; I
have watched the disintegration of families and communities; and
I have watched people become separated from the land, as self-
sufficiency is gradually replaced by economic dependence on the
outside world."